Tag: victor davis hanson

Can you reconcile the left’s image of California as a green progressive state that cares for the environment and the animals within it with this description of reality from VDH:

If I find a dead dog dumped on the alleyway (as I have three or four times over the last 12 months), with a rope around his neck and his insides exposed from dog fighting, I bury him and pass on calling the animal-control people. In fairness to them, what would they do, run an investigation into rural dog fighting—in a state in which felons are routinely released from prisons and jails, and sanctuary cities offer amnesties? I suppose a Queensland with his face ripped off is small potatoes. (Does multiculturalism trump the ASPCA or PETA?)

Nor do I ever contact the state EPA or the county when monthly I collect baby carriages, car seats, tires, used paint cans, old Christmas trees, mattresses, and dirty diapers dumped on the side of the road—despite occasional junk mail signifying the address of the polluter. About 50 pounds of coils of old worn-out drip hoses are out in front of my house today, a huge pile of plastic junk dumped as if my roadside was a free waste site. (Is the theory that my house qualifies for public service waste removal and thus someone poorer, in our spread-the-wealth society, has a right to dump his trash there?) How can such a green state that refuses to sell plastic bags at the coastal grocery markets prove indifferent to the spoliation of its rural hinterland?

The answer to Mr. Hanson’s question is simple, to not be indifferent to this would be to admit to realities that the liberals in the state find inconvenient.

This is going to end badly for the state but I suspect when it does the media will still not report it.

Like this:

SHREVEPORT – Saturday night, my husband and I sat around a patio table having drinks and talking politics with friends. It’s not often that I’m dumbfounded into speechlessness, but there I was. One of the men in our group expressed his enthusiastic support of Donald Trump:

HE: Well, what do you think about Donald Trump?

ME: Ugh – he’s a buffoon and a false conservative! I don’t think he’s serious about being president, he’s only in for the moment just to agitate.

HE: I like what he says! He’s got my vote!

ME: How can you tell what he says or means? He’s changed position on so many issues!

ANOTHER: He’s for gun control – that’s a deal breaker for me.

HE: Oh, I don’t care about gun control, I’m not all into guns.

This is the part where I started to gape. Right now, Trump says he is against gun control but he’s also on record for supporting assault weapon bans and longer wait periods. Overall, his position is inconsistent. My friend went on to explain that having a gun is so unnecessary because if someone was trying to attack me, the odds (“you’ve got to look at the percentages!” he exclaimed) of my being able to get to my gun to defend myself are very small. “You almost never see reports of someone stopping their attacker with a gun,” he explained. I’m not sure where he gets his information, but it’s not the same place I do.

At this point I started to realize that argument was futile.

Others in the group suggested more staunchly conservative candidates perhaps might merit his attention, like Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, or even Marco Rubio. The man shrugged, tossed back his drink, and said, “Oh I don’t know much about Ted Cruz and I don’t really care to – Trump already has my vote.” He repeated this several more times before I turned the conversation to the topic of cats, realizing that politics was a topic on which we would never agree.

This morning I woke up with the sad realization that my conservative vote might cancel out my daughter’s liberal one, but whose vote will cancel out the man in our group last night? And the man’s wife will only vote for whomever he tells her to, so … we may be doomed.

I’m scared that we have come to the point in our society where the general voter cares more about the Kardashians and Donny Loves Jenny than the future of our country. Trump is a buffoon, an entertainer, and a businessman. He says whatever he thinks you want to hear just so he can close the deal. He has no inner-core, no deep, soul searing beliefs in conservative theory.

The mystery among the political and media class is how quickly these disgruntled conservatives will be cleansed and get Trump out of their systems, and whether it will happen before he does other Republican candidates real damage. For now, it will take a bit more of the unfiltered Trump’s preposterousness and anti-PC bluster before his teed-off fans are finally pacified. Scorning or ridiculing Trump’s hypocrisies, narcissism, or outlandishness won’t silence him, much less win over his supporters. That will happen only when voters find a more savvy, more informed, more polite — but equally blunt and unafraid — version of Trump, perhaps a candidate like either Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or Scott Walker, all of whom are more likely to channel unapologetic conservative anger rather than crudely amplify it.

Mr. Hanson is right on target but I don’t think the fellow in our group last night is necessarily a “disgruntled conservative” but is instead just looking for someone entertaining, like the people on his reality shows.

George Will’s column last week suggests that the Republican party should deal with Trump the same way that William F. Buckley dealt with the John Birch Society in 1962 – excommunicate him:

Indeed, a party has a duty to exclude interlopers, including cynical opportunists deranged by egotism. This is why closed primaries, although not obligatory, are defensible: Let party members make the choices that define the party and dispense its most precious possession, a presidential nomination. So, the Republican National Committee should immediately stipulate that subsequent Republican debates will be open to any and all — but only — candidates who pledge to support the party’s nominee.

Should that happen, you can be sure Trump will pick up his toys and go home. Would he bother to run as a third party then, and ensure Hillary’s coronation? Of course he would.

There’s enough time for Trump to implode before things get too serious, but the concern is what damage will be done before then. How many more reality-voters and shallow thinkers will Trump win over before he’s done, and who will they turn to when he’s gone?

It seems to me that what we “learn” from pain depends greatly on the individual. Many become bitter and angry. Some rise above their sorrow to carry on and bring some happiness to those around them. Some accomplish great things – for instance, the creation of the state of Israel after the Holocaust. What we learn from pain also depends on a society, and throughout the world we find country after country mired in violence, where “life is cheap”. Deeper thinkers than I have struggled since antiquity for an answer to the question, what do we learn from pain?

a slang phrase meaning a verbal threat, criticism, or insult used to intimidate an opponent. The phrase originates from woofing, meaning aimless talk, an onomatopoeic reference to the sound of dogs barking.

(It’s a sad day when Wikipedia has a better definition for a black slang phrase than does the Urban Dictionary.)

Victor Davis Hanson says aloud what many observers of everyday-life already knew: in the run-up to a fist-fight, the one who talks the loudest and who talks the most feces is the one to fear the least. This is an over-arching aphorism in that it’s applicable to brewing bar fights as well as to brewing global conflicts—and to nearly every other type of tussle in between.

President Obama’s pivot has now joined his stable of deadlines, red lines, step-over lines, and “I don’t bluff” and “I’m not kidding” assertions. The problem with such rhetoric is not just that it is empty, but that it is predictably empty. If Obama cannot lead, can he at least keep quiet about it?

A Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran is not just unimpressed but encouraged, seeing such sermonizing as an assurance of nothing to follow. Obama’s threats are like a gambler’s involuntary tic, which astute poker players read always as a forewarning of a bluffed empty hand to follow.

He does this because that is what he thinks is expected of him: to talk. He thinks the presidency is about saying the proper set of words under a given set of circumstances. (Anything else is too much like work.)

Examples:

Racial issue involving black person? Make speeches implicitly blaming the other party, especially if the other party is white.

Crappy program promoted by the Obama administration or by the Democrat Party? Make speeches promoting the program and/or bribing an interest group into accepting said program.

And for the topic at hand, war not involving USA? Make “don’t make me come over there” speeches while shaking your finger at the “children” in this manner

…the president or his secretary of state lecture an aggressor about its unacceptable 19th-century behavior, the Third World about its homophobia, or the world about the dangers of climate change.

Vladimir Putin knows that the Obama Administration will do nothing and will continue to treat him like a little yappy dog as long as that latter keep running his mouth. (I would imagine that this gives Putin no joy. Guys like that prefer to match wits with an able foe, rather than a specially-abled[i] one.)

Professor Hanson spells out the price we will pay for electing this simpleton of a leader: another war. But this time I fear it will be right in front of us, and I don’t mean on the device.

There will come a point in time for all Americans during which each of us will be unable to ignore the folly of sending Barack Hussein Obama to the White House—an illuminating moment.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng blogs atbaldilocks. Her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game, was published in 2009; the second edition in 2012. Her new novel,Arlen’s Harem, is due in early 2014.Help her fund itand help keep her blog alive!

At PJ media (via Glenn) Victor Davis Hanson talks about a string of conservative defeats and sounds a warning:

None of us know what November brings. We all imagine the race will be far closer than 2008. We worry that eight years of this administration will institutionalize what we saw during the first four years. That said, every person worried about the direction of the country will have to vote, donate time or money, or offer public or private commentary. We are going to see things in September and October that we have not quite seen before in an election, as our modern Borgia pulls out all the stops to do whatever is necessary to win.

Mr. Hanson is a wise man, his books are spectacular and he’s likely a lot smarter than I am, but take a look at his list of items in his well written post:

1. The so-called Obama crash.

2. The Supreme Court.

3. Obamacare.

4. The Arizona decision.

5. Fast and Furious.

6. The Obama crises.

I look at this list and what I notice is none of these conservative disasters are electoral. It sounds like the Gay Marriage crowd who keep telling us the people are for it while they lose election after election.

In fact if you read his whole piece only his first entry “The Obama Crash” is even remotely a political argument and it’s all about polling….

Review Obama’s bad news of the last 90 days: the Scott Walker victory, the Obama gaffes (the private sector is doing “fine”), the Democratic defections (whether senators and representatives bailing from the convention or smackdowns on Bain Capital from Cory Booker, Bill Clinton, etc.), the Holder mess, the circumvention of Congress by de facto amnesty, the non-ending scandals (Solyndra, Fast and Furious, GSA, Secret Service, etc.), the Putin/Merkel put-down, our new Muslim Brotherhood friend and ally running Egypt, the supposed shortfall in campaign donations, etc. Yet this weekend Obama remains up in the polls and ahead in key swing states. If these “bad” weeks have led to his rise in the polls, what might good weeks do?

There is one real problem with this argument, Polls are not elections, 10 days before Scott Brown’s election we heard this:

let’s not pretend that Republican state senator Scott Brown has any chance of pulling off the monumental upset

All the way till November in 2010 the left was still talking about how this rally or that rally was going to rally the left in a narrative that lasted right up until the Sunday of the election.

And in special elections the left has managed only managed wins in safe areas (Ca-36) and in a three-way race with a faux tea party candidate in the mix (ny-26), while the GOP has not only won when they were supposed to (nv-2) but in districts they had no business winning in. (ny-9).

And let me remind Mr. Hanson that the exit polls showed a dead even race in Wisconsin for Scott Walker just a few hours before he cruised to victory.

Yes we have to work hard, yes we can’t slack and yes I do expect these folks to be fight so dirty as to make a mud hole look like a bidet, but perception doesn’t trump reality. Cripes the president just won the biggest victory of his presidency in the supreme court and vulnerable democrats are still running away. It seems to me the words I used last September still ring true:

While the media will do their best to spin it otherwise Democrats in congress and democrats in states who will have to run on a ticket with this president will see this result and ask: “Am I willing to put my political future in Barack Obama’s hands?”

It’s not going to be close.
Update: Woke up to an Instalanche and 17 comments in the pot I’ll get to you all. In addition to suggesting hitting DaTipJar so I can stop using my wife’s car I strongly suggest clicking on the “Ride Right Through Them” link as you’ll see example after example of what I’ve been talking about for a year.

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In other words, the calls for a general toning down of rhetoric translate far more into a toning down of both an effective media opposition and a rising political obstruction to the Obama agenda. “Can’t we all get along?” in essence means, “Can’t we all just keep quiet and keep going on with the big-government, agreed-on politics of the last fifty years?”

And why it will fail:

bipartisan friendly dialogue cannot and will not be adhered to by those now calling for its implementation, since divisive language often achieves what an unpersuasive ideology cannot.

And the end result?

I predict that 18 months from now the president himself will still be calling for a new civility in the manner of his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention — and will once again adopt the sorts of over-the-top metaphors, similes, allusions, and rough-stuff politics that got him elected senator in 2004 and president in 2008, and pushed his health-care legislation through in 2009. If anything, the language of division will be shriller even than in 2010, as the administration grasps that loaded language, coupled with calls for an end to rancor, must now do what a record of unpopular governance cannot.

Like this:

When Joe Scarborough quoted this Victor Davis Hanson piece today a panelist (Jeffrey Sachs) pooh poohed him as an “extremist” and nobody on that panel challenged him. He maintained Victor Davis Hanson is an extremist who has gotten us into a bunch of wars.

Yes this writer and grape grower who pens books on military history is the cause of all evil.

When you don’t have the intellectual power to match a Hanson then all you can do is attack.

Update: Ron Radosh notes that the idea of “No Labels” and civility doesn’t seem to apply to conservative thinkers:

And what did Joe “Mr. No Labels” movement Scarborough, who talks every day about the need for civility, camaraderie and dialogue between folks of different opinions, have to say to Jeffrey Sachs after this most vile outburst?

The answer: absolutely nothing, but move on to the next point as if Sachs had never spoken these words. Sachs has accused the estimable historian of causing us to get into more wars than anybody else in America, and of being an extremist, and all Scarborough could come up with is a lame joke about Hanson not being on his Christmas card list.

All labels are bad, but some labels are more equal than others apparently.

Like this:

Victor Davis Hanson is a bit of a scholar so how bad does an article have to be for him to say this:

I know it’s commonplace to read in the latest issue of Time or Newsweek that Obama is a god, that Islamophobic Americans are collectively prejudiced against Muslims, that the response after 9/11 was overblown and unnecessary (over 30 subsequent terrorist plots have been foiled, and, for some reason, renditions, tribunals, Guantanamo, Predators, intercepts, etc., have all been embraced by the Obama administration), but the recent Time piece on Israel by a Karl Vick is probably the most anti-Semitic essay I have ever read in a mainstream publication.

And it’s not like there is no competition out there. I’m presuming he is referring to the full article but would like to know if that’s the case.

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